Sistahs
by Kara
Summary: Sequel to "Lady in Red" and "Blood for Blood"--it's the morning after, and Max gets a little advice from her sisters. Pure sap.


Sistahs  
By Kara  
  
Spoilers: Through "Female Troubles"  
Disclaimer: Max and Logan belong to each other, and Manticore and its troubles and triumphs belong to James Cameron and Fox. All I own is a web domain and a few college loans  
A/N: Sequel to "Lady in Red" and "Blood For Blood," taking place the morning after "Blood for Blood." Though it's a slight jump and tweak on the Dark Angel universe, it will return to canon. Just imagine that all of this happened, and then the complications of "Female Troubles" began after this story. It works. I swear it does. Maybe… Does this work? Is the ending too sappy? Please, lemme know if the flow doesn't keep consistent to the end.  
  
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*  
  
"Tinga? Brin?" Max looked at the three women around her. "Jondy."  
  
"Hey, baby sister." There was a soft smile on Tinga's face.  
  
Max felt three pairs of arms wrap around her, as the four of them sat in a huddle just the way they used to at Manticore, when they were young. "I missed you," she whispered to all of them. These were the women who knew what it was to be an X-5, trying to make her way in the world. Her bunkmates and fellow soldiers. Her family.  
  
"Your hair's so short, Maxie!" Slender fingers ran themselves through Max's dark curls. Tinga's eyes laughed at her. "Going for the low-maintenance look, huh?"  
  
Max stuck her tongue out at Tinga and Brin, both of whom wore their dark hair long, almost as if in defiance to Manticore. In fact, it surprised her that Manticore had let Brin keep her hair long. It was a far cry from the buzz cuts of their childhood, and Max's secret longing for hair like the girls in the books they read.  
  
"Life treating you good?" Jondy's light touch traced one of the bags under Max's eyes. "You almost look like you need sleep, Maxie." There was the sound of sardonic laughter in her voice. Max couldn't help smiling a little at her fellow nocturnal sister.  
  
"It's not just Lydecker on your tail, huh, Max? Is it that man of yours?" Brin sat with her legs tucked up against her body, chin resting on her knees. She looked almost…wistful.  
  
"He's not my man," Max answered automatically.  
  
Tinga laughed. "Tell us again, Maxie. I saw the way he looked at you." She smirked. "And the way Zack looked at him. Your man treating you right?"  
  
She shook her head. "It's not like that. Logan and I aren't…" Max's fingers played with the chain around her neck, lightly tracing the engraved locked resting in the hollow of her throat. "We're partners."  
  
"Partners." Jondy's dark eyes were dubious in her small face. "If you say so, Max."   
  
"He's just Logan. I help him, and he helps me. We're not like that. That would be-"  
  
"Dangerous," Brin finished softly, something they'd all heard a thousand times. "We can't get involved, we can't settle in one place, we can't stay together. Survival." Her voice was flat.  
  
Somehow, coming from Brin's mouth, the words seemed harsh. When Zack said it, it almost made sense. But from Brin…  
  
"Safety isn't the question though, sometimes." Tinga tipped Max's face up, dark eyes meeting her own. "Do you love him, Maxie?" The older woman's voice was gentle.  
  
The blush Max felt burning her cheeks was probably enough of an answer. As the youngest of their group, Max had always been the baby. Protected. When she had seizures, the others covered for her, just as she covered for them. Ben made shadow puppets on the walls with his slender fingers after lights out. And nights when she hadn't been able to sleep, she and Jondy had talked until dawn, wondering about what was outside Manticore's walls.   
  
It went beyond secret handshakes and dreams that they never told anyone else about, and the fact that her sisters had saved her life more than one time. Max still felt the chill of the freezing water that night she fell through the ice, and Jondy was forced to go on without her. Being without her sisters for more than ten years, Max had almost forgot what it was like to have family that knew her inside and out. Family who made her see what she tried so hard to ignore.  
  
Brin smiled slightly. "He's a good man, Max. He reminds you that you're a woman, and not a soldier." For a moment, Brin's face darkened. "Sometimes, that's the hardest thing of all to forget."  
  
"But Zack-" There was still that part of Max that needed her big brother, and his approval. Zack had tried so hard to protect them-all of them. He was the one who had planned the escape, and saved their lives. They were her family. She fingered the locket at her neck. Even Eyes Only needed the approval of his family.  
  
Jondy laughed, but it was a harsh laugh. "Zack is our commander. It's what he's always been. He can't…" She paused, her shoulder-length brown curls hiding her face for a moment before looking up again with serious eyes. "I think he's jealous, Maxie. Not just of your man. Of the fact that of all of us, you escaped."  
  
"Is love so bad, Max?" Tinga asked. "What if you do love him? What if you do stay with him, and have a child with him? We're women. It's our right to love if we find it." A look of some incredible emotion lit up her face. "It's all good, baby sister. It's worth every bit. Even if sometimes you do have to let that love go."  
  
"You became a woman." Brin's tone was matter of fact. "Yeah, your life is in danger, but you-" She trailed off, and Max could see tears in Brin's almond-shaped eyes. Her sister's dark gaze was defiant. "You've lived."  
  
Tinga reached out, taking the locket between fingers that seemed too delicate to be lethal. "Your man loves you and protects you. Even though you've been reassigned, Max, your family hasn't changed. It's just gotten a little bigger." She smiled. "Protect him the same way that you protected us, as Zack's second."  
  
Max felt Jondy's hand stroke her hair. "Be his partner, baby sister. Don't follow behind him. Help your miracle boy lead the way."  
  
Max felt herself become a tangle of arms, Tinga's soft voice whispering in her ear. "Be brave, Maxie. We might all escape this yet. And remember that it's always worth it, even if you just have a moment. That moment, holding him close to your heart…"  
  
Each of her sisters dropped a light kiss on Max's cheek. "And you'll always have us, baby sister," Brin whispered. "No matter how much they make us forget, or how far we are apart. You're a part of us, always, even if it doesn't seem that way." She smiled. "We'll see you again."  
  
  
Max woke up, feeling a moment of panic when she didn't immediately recognize where she was. But then, she felt the weight of a warm body beside her.  
  
"Max?" The arm fell from around her waist. Somehow, in the middle of the night, she had snuggled up against the man next to her. Even in the past, on the few times she had stayed in some man's bed after sex, she never slept curled up next to the other person. You couldn't break free with a man's arm around you, holding you back.  
  
Rolling over, Max turned to face him, almost afraid of what she might find. Logan Cale's blue eyes were even more startling without his glasses blocking them. Sometime in the night, he'd stripped down to boxers and a shirt Original Cindy would've called a ho-beater. The muscles in his shoulders rippled as he leaned on one arm. Max had to stop herself from running her fingers through his light brown hair, standing almost straight up. Before she could help it, she giggled, a sound that almost startled her.  
  
"What's so funny?" Logan asked, blinking owlishly at her. He looked like a little boy, rubbing sleepily at his eyes.  
  
She laughed again. "You. You look…" Her fingers tentatively touched his spiky hair.  
  
A smile creased Logan's face as he rubbed a hand over his cheek. "I look like I just woke up."  
  
Max's fingers reached out to join his on Logan's stubbly cheek. Their tips almost burned as she brushed them across his face. "You've got some nice 5:00 shadows for so early in the morning," she teased.  
  
"Early?" Logan looked over her shoulder, squinting at the clock. "It's almost noon."  
  
"What?" Max threw off the covers, struggling to stand. Even her feline reflexes couldn't keep her from falling in a heap of blankets at the foot of Logan's bed. "Normal's gonna fire my ass!" Falling to her hands and knees, she began a frantic search for her shoes.  
  
"Max."  
  
Not too surprisingly, Logan Cale kept nothing under his bed. Max didn't want to think about what was growing under hers. But her shoes. She had to find her shoes, so that she could get to work… She would deal with Logan and his idiosyncrasies some other time.  
  
"Max!" Logan's voice was more insistent this time.  
  
"What?" She popped her head up, nearly smacking it against his as he looked over the edge of the bed at her. Logan's head was harder than it looked.  
  
Soft fingers brushed tenderly at her head. "You okay?"  
  
She sat back for a moment, taking a breath. She was already late. It's not like an extra five minutes would kill her. And there was something about Logan's touch…  
  
"If you want, you can shower here to save time," his gravelly voice offered. Logan's hand began to run itself through her hair, bringing back memories of the night before and-  
  
--her sisters' slender fingers, light kisses to her forehead, the feeling of warm arms around her…  
  
Before Max's mind could even begin to think of Logan's shower and what he would look like in it, she shook her head. "I need to get home to get my bike, and my gear and-" She needed to get out of there before she said something foolish to Logan and ruined whatever chance they had in this hell that whatever they were would work…  
  
"Max." He smiled slightly, a look that was almost tender on his face. It was the same face Logan wore when she'd stepped out of the bathroom before they went to the wedding-the same face he'd worn cleaning her wounds after the fight with the Reds. "Come by for dinner? Bling found a rump roast at the market the other day."  
  
Max let herself smile. "And I can bring a pot to cook it in." Pot roast. Real meat. Food was so simple. Food never got complicated and decided you might be more than friends. If anything, Logan was always good for a meal-not that she thought with her stomach all the time. Better her stomach than when she was in heat…  
  
With a blush, Max backed away. Turning around, she found her shoes lined up with Logan's next to the door. Tasteful, simple, everything in its place. That was Logan.  
  
After she'd laced her boots up, she turned back to face Logan. He'd managed to get to his feet, a look of joy on his face. It almost made Max embarrassed to see such a grateful look. And the look on his face when he turned towards her…  
  
Holding onto the wall as he went, Logan took careful steps as he crossed the room. "I'll see you for dinner then." For a moment, they stared at each other, and Max couldn't help remembering a few mornings before, wondering how their new relationship-whatever the hell it was-affected their goodbyes.  
  
"I'll see you for Pot Roast Chez Cale," she answered lightly.  
  
"With a pot Chez Guevara?" Logan half-grinned in that maddeningly hot way of his.  
  
Max smirked at him. " Of the Greenwich Guevaras." And before she could change her mind, she brushed his lips with hers and rushed out the door.  
  
  
"Your excuse?" Normal's voice had no problems carrying over the usual chaos of the Jam Pony office as Max rode in on her bike twenty minutes later. For a moment, she let herself imagine throttling Normal's obsessive-compulsive little ass.  
  
"As a result of an emergency blood transfusion saving the life of a friend of mine, I passed out and had to be kept in the lab overnight for testing," she snapped back, flinging a note at his cage. For effect, Max put a little quiver into her voice. Thank God for Bling and the stack of doctor's notices she had sitting in her drawer at home…  
  
Normal caught the slip of paper, his bulging eyes checking it for legitimacy. "Remind me again why I never fire you lazy ingrates."  
  
Max spun around, the happy daze of her night with Logan wearing off . "I dunno about them, but this lazy ingrate saved your skinny neurotic ass, Normal. You owe me."  
  
"That is the way that Ja has deemed it, my sistah," Herbal's careful drawl said from behind her. "Remember that what goes around most certainly does come around."  
  
Max grinned at Herbal. " 'Sall good?"  
  
He nodded, flashing her a bright smile. " 'Sall good, my little sistah."  
  
It's all good, baby sister…  
  
Cindy was leaning up against Max's locker. "There she is, Miss America herself. Whatcha got to say to Original Cindy, Boo? Some of us was worried." Her roommate gave her a quick once-over, looking concerned.. "You ain't havin' problems with that whacked family of yours? Everything aiight?"  
  
Max smiled slightly, remembering the feeling of Logan's body beside her, the feel of his lips against hers.  
  
"You didn't." Original Cindy gave her a flat look. "Did you, Boo?"  
  
"No! Of course not." She blushed. "I just fell asleep."  
  
Max's best friend snorted. "Boo, Original Cindy not only heard that line before, she invented it." The look on Original Cindy's face became serious. "Just as long as things is aiight with you, sugar. I worried cuz you didn't call. You know you're my baby boo."  
  
"Next time Logan and I have a slumber party, I'll give you a call," Max said with a laugh.  
  
"Max?" Normal bleated from his cage. "Max, you have a social call." The blond-haired man rolled his eyes in his usual chickenshit fashion. "For the love of Mike, do any of you ever do any work?" Max couldn't help laughing as Normal threw up his hands and then retreated behind his pile of packages.  
  
Original Cindy gave her a nudge. "Might as well see who it is, Max. If Normal's gonna be flappin' his yap, better make it for a good reason, aiight?"  
  
"Aiight." Dodging bikes as she walked towards what served as the main office of Jam Pony, Max caught sight of a familiar figure next to Normal.  
  
"Your friend was kind enough to bring your medication." Normal hid behind a wall of Lysol that he kept spraying. He gave her a suspicious look. "Is it contagious?"  
  
"It's a genetically engineered airborne virus that causes seizures, Normal, but only to uptight asses who wear Hawaiian print shirts." Brushing her boss aside, Max stood in front of Logan.  
  
"You forgot something," he said, handing her a small prescription bottle. "You know what the doctor said."  
  
She smiled, noting that there was a supply of Tryptophan in the transparent brown bottle. "Yeah, I know." Max noticed Normal still watching them. She wasn't used to an audience, and from the odd look on Logan's face, she could tell he wasn't either.  
  
"I'm making soup tonight, if you wanna stop by," he offered, his blue eyes laughing. "Doctor's orders."  
  
"If the doctor orders it, how could I say no?" she countered with a grin. "Have you ever known me to miss a meal?"  
  
"Glad to know the way to your heart." As soon as the words fell out of his mouth, Max could see a blush spreading over Logan's cheeks. Even their careless flirting had limits. "Umm, I should go."  
  
Perfectly aware of Normal's eyes on her back, Max nodded. "Yeah, if I don't start work soon, Normal's Bip Bip radar's gonna kick in." She waved the bottle of Tryptophan. "Thanks for bringing this by."  
  
Again, Logan's brilliant smile flashed across his face, and Max could feel her genetically-engineered insides almost melt. Her boo'd be proud of her, having a romantic side after all. With a quick look around, Logan suddenly stood up. The chaos that was Jam Pony went silent, but all Max could focus on was Logan's lips on hers. For the third time in two days, he managed to completely blank out her heightened senses. All she needed to know was the warmth of his body, his smell of aftershave and shampoo, and the slight scratching of his scruffy upper lip against hers.  
  
"See you tonight," he whispered, breaking away. Sitting back down in the chair, Logan turned himself around and wheeled out.  
  
"If I didn't know better…" Original Cindy appeared at Max's shoulder. "It looks like your man swallowed the canary or somethin', girl. And since when did Mr. Wheels get mobile?" She thought for a moment. "Unless that's what you meant 'bout his possibilities expanding…"  
  
Max smiled. "Something like that."  
  
Cindy's arm wrapped around her shoulders. "Just take care of yourself, Max. Just cause you got some hyped up supah supah blood in you don't mean that someone can't take a smackdown on your ass. Or your heart."  
  
"I know." Max turned to the other woman. "You really were worried."  
  
"Someone's gotta, sugar. That's what you do with family." Original Cindy gave her a quick hug. "Now get back to work before Normal's little eyes pop out of his head."  
  
Max grabbed the package that Normal waved frantically, pushing off against the concrete to get her bike moving. Family had been the focus of her life for the last ten years, almost to the point where she forgot what it was like to have people who cared. Maybe she didn't need to look so hard.  
  
But as she pedaled off into the sector-traffic, Max couldn't help remembering phantom arms wrapped around her, and an intense feeling of love. Her sisters would always be there for her, no matter how much distance was between them. And she knew that someday she'd see them again.  
  



End file.
